1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a head suspension having a tongue to which a slider provided with a magnetic head is attached to write and read data to and from a magnetic disk in a hard disk drive (HDD). In particular, the present invention relates to a method of reclaiming the head suspension, a method of manufacturing the head suspension, and a method of reclaiming a work, capable of greatly improving yields.
2. Description of Related Art
FIG. 1 illustrates a head suspension 101 used to write and read data to and from a magnetic disk in a hard disk drive installed in, for example, a personal computer.
The head suspension 101 includes a base plate 102, a load beam 103 fixed to the base plate 102, and a flexure 105. The flexure 105 is made of a flexible metal thin plate and is fixed to the load beam 103 by, for example, spot welding.
The flexure 105 has a tongue 106 to which a slider 107 is attached with an adhesive 111 (FIG. 2A). The slider 107 has a write/read magnetic head (magnetoelectric converting element). The head suspension 101 provided with the slider 107 is called a head gimbal assembly (HGA).
In the head gimbal assembly, the load beam 103 produces resilient force that is balanced with hydrodynamic force generated between the slider 107 and the magnetic disk, so that the slider 107 floats above the surface of the magnetic disk by an infinitesimal distance and is positioned to a track on the magnetic disk.
The surface of the flexure 105 is provided with a flexible wiring substrate 109 (FIG. 2A) that electrically connects the slider 107 to a circuitry of the hard disk drive. The slider 107 is electrically connected to the flexible wiring substrate 109 with a gold ball bonding 112 as illustrated in FIG. 2A.
The head gimbal assembly is tested for its performance and characteristics before shipment, and if passes the test, is shipped as a product. If the head gimbal assembly fails the test due to some problem of the slider 107, the defective slider 107 is detached from the flexure 105 to reclaim the head suspension 101 and a new slider 107 is attached to the flexure 105 to restore the head gimbal assembly. The adhesive 111 used to fix the slider 107 to the flexure 105 is generally a thermosetting adhesive.
When detaching the slider 107 (FIG. 2A) from the tongue 106 of the flexure 105 fixed to the load beam 103, the flexure 105 easily deforms because the flexure 105 is thin and brittle compared with the load beam 103. In addition, there is a risk of detaching, together with the slider 107, the flexible wiring substrate 109 attached to the flexure 105. To avoid this, a related art such as Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2005-44399 heats an area around the slider 107 to weaken the strength of the adhesive 111, and them, detaches the slider 107 from the tongue 106 of the flexure 105.
The related art, however, is incapable of clearly removing the adhesive 111 with the slider 107 and frequently leaves at least part of the adhesive 111 on the flexure 105 as illustrated in FIG. 2B. The adhesive 111 remaining on the flexure 105 prevents a new slider 107 from firmly being fixed to the flexure 105. The residual adhesive 111 must clearly be removed from the flexure 105. For this, the related art achieves a residual adhesive removing process. This process applies a solvent to the part of the flexure 105 where the residual adhesive is present and manually scrapes off the residual adhesive with a removing jig 113 as illustrated in FIG. 3.
The residual adhesive removing process involving the manual work may damage or deform the head suspension and change the load balance thereof depending on the skill of a person who conducts the residual adhesive removing process. In addition, the process takes a long time and deteriorates yields.